And was it won merely for men of science? The whole civilized world declares that it was won for religion--that thereby was infinitely increased the knowledge of the power and goodness of God. POLITICAL ECONOMY. From the many questions on which the supporters of right reason in Political and Social Science have only conquered conscientious opposition after centuries of war, I select the taking of interest on loans; in hardly any struggle has rigid adherence to the Bible as a scientific text-book been more prolonged or injurious.[132] Certainly, if the criterion of truth, as regards any doctrine, be that it has been believed in the Church "always, everywhere, and by all," then on no point may a Christian of these days be more sure than that every savings-institution, every loan and trust company, every bank, every loan of capital by an individual, every means by which accumulated capital has been lawfully lent, even at the most moderate interest, to make the masses of men workers rather than paupers, is based on deadly sin. The fathers of the Christian Church received from the ancient world a strong prejudice against any taking of interest whatever; in Greece, Aristotle had condemned it; in Rome it was regarded during many generations as a crime.[133] But far greater, in the early Church, was the influence of certain texts in the Old and New Testaments. Citations from Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Ezekiel, and St. Luke, were universally held to condemn all loans at interest.[134] On these texts the doctrine and legislation of the universal Church, as regards interest for money, were based and developed. The fathers of the Eastern Church, and among them St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, and St. Gregory Nazianzen; the fathers of the Western Church, and among them Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome, joined most earnestly in this condemnation. St. Chrysostom says: "What can be more unreasonable than to sow without land, without rain, without ploughs? All those who give themselves up to this damnable agriculture shall reap only tares. Let us cut off these monstrous births of gold and silver; let us stop this execrable fecundity." St. Jerome threw the argument into the form of a dilemma, which was used as a weapon against money-lenders for centuries.[135]